Caron Simply Soft – Yards of Happiness

FO: Sister Sweaters

Welcome to Monday. My posting has been a little off lately but with the holidays I have a feeling it will be like that more often than not. But don’t worry, I’ve actually be furiously knitting lots of smaller things in between working on sweaters. I may not get all the sweaters I wanted finished for the holidays but the sweater for my Mom is working up beautifully but I like to stop and take breaks because the smaller needles kill my hands. So what else have I have been working on? Sister sweaters (a link to baby and toddler)!

My favorite little girl is getting a little sister in February so I decided I’d make Maddie and baby girl coordinating sister sweaters.

For both sweaters I used the Baby and Child Sophisticated Sweater pattern and just omitted the shawl collar. I made the 0-3 month and the 24 months sizes. When my girlfriend was pregnant with Maddie before we even knew she was a girl I knit her this cardigan in red and grey as a gift and Maddie ended up wearing it for most of the spring that year. It was cute to see it on her Facebook feed popping up in photos when they were out and about. I love seeing my hand knits out in the wild. I’m hoping she can get the same wear out of this new sweater with baby sister (even though I’m pretty sure she still has the first sweater stashed away).
Sister Sweaters
On both sweaters I used my trusted favorite Caron’s Simply Soft in Sunshine (yellow), Off White and Heathered Gray but I mixed up the colors on each sweater and made the stripes bigger on the toddler size.

And both sweaters have these sweet yellow, grey and white owl buttons I picked up at Joann’s. I wanted the sweaters to be the same but still a little different. That’s how my parents always did things for us since there were three girls. We might get the same jeans but in different colors to fit our personalities. It’s nice not to have to have all the same stuff as your sister. We threw my girlfriend a little baby ‘sprinkle’ (first baby you shower her with gifts and the second you sprinkle her with gifts) and I gave her the sweaters. And her facial expression is why I make these things…
Yuvay's sprinkle
I think she knew I’d knit something for the new little one but when she pulled out the coordinating sweater for Maddie she melted.

A total yards of happiness kind of moment 🙂

FO: Babies & Fur Babies

You know that I’m a dog lover. I’ve made that very clear here on my blog. But I have a girlfriend who also loves her dog Edie (a fluffy little white ball of cuteness) as much as I love mine and we send each other pictures of our fur babies all the time. So when she told me she was having a baby, my first instinct was to make a ‘sibling set’ for the baby and the dog. I’ve made matching sweaters for siblings before but why not for baby and fur baby?
Beal baby stuff
Part of what I love about knitting is how personal you can make each piece. You can take a simple baby sweater pattern like Wee Sherlock and put your own spin on it. I used my standard Caron Simply Soft yarn to make the sweaters both machine washable and dryer friendly because babies and dogs are messy at times. I used a lovely teal color called Pagoda and a deep pink shade called Fuchsia. My girlfriend didn’t want a super girly color palette but loves blue and I thought this would be a fun mix. I also love Etsy because if you search for it you will find it. As I was knitting the sweater, knowing I was going to make a matching dog sweater I thought, why not find a fluffy white dog button as an accent for the sweater? And then I found the most perfect buttons from Embellishment Buttons and I knew they would make this tiny sweater even cuter than I thought it could be. And I love buying from small businesses on Etsy, they always leave great notes and are quick with shipping!
Beal baby stuff
I love the asymmetrical button band and although the original pattern had a cable panel down the front I decided to just make it a simple garter stitch panel down the center. I just wanted to make it a super quick knit and not fuss with my cable needle.

And if you have a baby with a fur sibling, you need to make the fur sibling a sweater too, right? I made Cher the Sparkle sweater before and knew it would be a quick knit so I took the same color palette from the baby sweater, teal and magenta) and just used it in reverse for Edie’s dog sweater to make them pop in photos together.
Beal baby stuff
Also, dog sweaters are hard to photograph when not on a dog. This one is too small for Cher and too big for Jelly! I’m keeping my fingers crossed it fits Edie and all her fluff but projects like this are why I love knitting. I can make something knit with a lot of love and attention that swaddles your baby (or dog) with my love. It’s what makes knitting these kinds of things such a joy too. And I highly recommend the Wee Sherlock sweater pattern, it’s another free one. It’s simple and easy to modify as well.

My birthday is next week so I’ve got a little pre-birthday celebrating to do and clearly that will involve knitting. I hope you have a fantastic weekend as well!

August 26, 2016February 27, 2017 by IamDWJ Categories: Baby Knits, blue, Caron, Color, For Dogs, Knitting, pink, YarnTags: #yardsofhappiness, Baby Cardigan, Caron Simply Soft, dog sweater, dogs, knit gifts, knitting, sweater knitting, Yarn 10 Comments

FO: Wee Lima Sweater

There are two things that I love: knitting for babies and getting pictures of babies in things that I knit them. If you ever need a good mood booster, just knit a tiny sweater.
Baby sweater
So this week, I’ve been knitting tiny things and the Wee Lima sweater (a free sweater pattern – go add it to your library) is a new favorite.
Untitled
A super quick, cute and easy knit. A perfect baby project. I picked this one because it was a worsted weight raglan sweater and I loved the buttons on the raglan increase. I just thought it was too cute and it gave me an opportunity to use adorable buttons (I should really do a post just about buttons because I have a pretty fun stash).
Untitled
I also typically like to work with Caron Simply Soft for baby clothes because the yarns wash and dry in the machine and they just get softer with each wash. Exactly what you want on newborn skin. I made this fun unisex number for my coworker who is having her second child and doesn’t know if it’s a boy or a girl. When she picked it up the first thing she said was, “it’s just so soft!” and that’s what I want a parent to say. Last year I made another coworker a sweater for her baby boy last December and she said her son was able to wear his sweater the entire winter, so I’m hoping this little boy or girl due next month will get a lot of wear with this one. I’ve finished up another baby cardigan and am almost finished with the matching sweater for the dog sibling and I’ve got a couple of other baby knits I want to work on while I’m on a baby knitting streak. Any other go-to baby knitting patterns? Please share!